1945 Elbe Day: United States and Soviet troops met in Torgau along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht in two, a milestone in the approaching end of World War II in Europe.

1945 – The Nazi occupation army surrendered and left Northern Italy after a general partisan insurrection by the Italian resistance movement; the puppet fascist regime dissolved and Mussolini tried to escape. This day is taken as symbolic of the Liberation of Italy.

1975 As North Vietnamese forces closed in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy was closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.

1976 Chicago Cubs’ outfielder, Rick Monday, rescued the American flag from two protestors who had run on to the field at Dodger Stadium. The two people covered the flag In lighter fluid but before the match was put to the flag, Monday, sprinted in and grabbed it away from them.

1981 More than 100 workers were exposed to radiation during repairs of a nuclear power plant in Tsuruga.

1999 – The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.

2004 The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).